Monthly Archives: May 2007

In this multi-part video presentation, Nishant Saxena describes the complete M&A process, with learnings from various transactions. We believe this is one of the most comprehensive M&A presentations available on the Internet for free viewing and download: Mergers & Acquisitions Deal Process

The M&A process is usually a long process that must go through a range of details, people, and decisions.

The larger the deal size, the more complicated the process, with more people getting involved, and more views to accommodate.

If you are buying a company strictly as a financial venture, the M&A process is complicated enough. Adding specific personnel, technological or strategic objectives to the transaction goals simply complicates the process even more.

Buyers and sellers should understand their specific motivations and goals as they pertain to the purchase under investigation. It is important that buyer and seller understand the perspective and real-needs of the other party.

The M&A process may take a weeks, months, or even years, though the usual time frames are about 3-9 months. And during this period, the buyer and seller learn details about each other.

Its absolutely essential to ensure trust and integrity in the process – otherwise the deal can often break at the last minute. No issue is a non-issue. Every question needs an answer.

Clearly defined goals help greatly in evaluating the impact of subsequently uncovered details. Developing these goals requires advance preparation and evaluation on the part of both buyer and seller and greatly enhances the likelihood of post-acquisition success.

About the Presenter: Nishant Saxena is the CEO of Elements Akademia. He has seven years experience in Corporate Finance with Procter & Gamble – including Strategic/ Financial Planning, M&A, Value creation, White-space expansion, GAAP Accounting, and Internal Controls/Audit etc. Worked across various geographies in Asia (Japan, Philippines, India and Singapore) and across various business units. BE, MBA from one of India’s top schools. He founded Elements Akademia in 2007 along with 10 other IIM alumni. The company focusses on the high growth education sector in India and other developing countries.

The Cash Flow Statement is typcally the 3rd of the 3 financial statements found in an Annual Report. This video provides an overview. It gives a clear explanation of the relationship between the income statement and cash flow statement.

About the presenter: Michael Fischer spent nine years at Goldman Sachs, advising some of the largest private banks, mutual fund companies and hedge funds in the world on investment choices. He started his finance career at Credit Suisse First Boston in early 1995. During these ten years, he was frequently ranked as the top advisor by many of his clients and peers. He gave his opinion to managers of trillions of dollars of assets and came across hundreds of different investment styles and approaches; he also bought and sold billions of dollar of investments on behalf of his clients and himself. Michael holds an MBA from INSEAD (Dec 1994) and an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Toronto (1989). He has also written a book on Saving and Investing because he feels strongly this material is too important in our world today to ignore. You can learn more about his book at the following website: http://www.savingandinvestingbook.com

The Balance Sheet is one of the 3 main financial statements of a company — it captures the Assets, and the Liabilities (equity+debt) at a “certain point in time” – like the end of the year. And it balances.

About the presenter: Michael Fischer spent nine years at Goldman Sachs, advising some of the largest private banks, mutual fund companies and hedge funds in the world on investment choices. He started his finance career at Credit Suisse First Boston in early 1995. During these ten years, he was frequently ranked as the top advisor by many of his clients and peers. He gave his opinion to managers of trillions of dollars of assets and came across hundreds of different investment styles and approaches; he also bought and sold billions of dollar of investments on behalf of his clients and himself. Michael holds an MBA from INSEAD (Dec 1994) and an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Toronto (1989). He has also written a book on Saving and Investing because he feels strongly this material is too important in our world today to ignore. You can learn more about his book at the following website: http://www.savingandinvestingbook.com

There are 3 main account statements for companies – the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. This video in on the first of these – the income statement.

About the presenter: Michael Fischer spent nine years at Goldman Sachs, advising some of the largest private banks, mutual fund companies and hedge funds in the world on investment choices. He started his finance career at Credit Suisse First Boston in early 1995. During these ten years, he was frequently ranked as the top advisor by many of his clients and peers. He gave his opinion to managers of trillions of dollars of assets and came across hundreds of different investment styles and approaches; he also bought and sold billions of dollar of investments on behalf of his clients and himself. Michael holds an MBA from INSEAD (Dec 1994) and an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Toronto (1989). He has also written a book on Saving and Investing because he feels strongly this material is too important in our world today to ignore. You can learn more about his book at the following website: http://www.savingandinvestingbook.com

Last week was active and interesting – we initiated Industry Dicussions in the areas of: M&A, Sales & Marketing, and Project Management – you will be able to see some of these new discussions in a week.

All these discussions are planned as a series, which means they will have multiple parts –easier for you to pick up, and easier to fit into the busy schedules of our contributing professionals.

Some of these discussions will be available to invited members only because of the wish of the contributing executive. And that is equally fine because MyOrbit.tv can be used both for public and private sharing of business experiences.

By end-June, we plan to feature about 8 industry groups (each group having a few blogs in it) that are created and run by our members – for their business or knowledge sharing. Meanwhile, if you have any questions or want something to be discussed on this blog, write to us at: connect [at] myorbit.tv